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 hope of creeping along its slope till they were past the pool.

‘We can’t get there anyhow, without walking right through it, or else going round Stone Bridge way; and that would make us so very late!’ said Retty, pausing hopelessly.

‘And I do colour up so hot, walking into church late, and all the people staring round,’ said Marian, ‘that I hardly cool down again till we get into the That-it-may-please-Thees.’

While they stood clinging to the bank they heard a splashing round the bend of the road, and presently appeared Angel Clare, advancing along the lane towards them through the water.

Four hearts gave a big throb simultaneously.

His aspect was probably as un-Sabbatarian a one as a dogmatic parson’s son often presented; his attire being his dairy clothes, long wading boots, a cabbage-leaf inside his hat to keep his head cool, with a thistle-spud to finish him off.

‘He’s not going to church,’ said Marian.

‘No—I wish he was!’ murmured Tess.

Angel, in fact, rightly or wrongly (to adopt the safe phrase of evasive controversialists), preferred sermons in stones to sermons in churches